Leath opens up a little bit on Gus extension

quote:

---

Steven Leath, the president of Auburn University from 2017 to 2019, negotiated giving then-football coach Gus Malzahn a seven-year, $49 million contract extension in December 2017. Malzahn was fired in 2020, and Auburn committed to buy out the remainder of his contract for more than $21 million. At the time, it set a record for the largest buyout paid by a school.

"You're in a public relations disadvantage," said Leath, who is now executive director of the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports. "No matter where you end up on a contract, there will be some people who think the coach should be gone and shouldn't be renegotiated at all. And there will be some people who think you didn't pay him enough because he walks on water. It's hard to win the public relations battle no matter where you come down."

Auburn ($31.2 million) and Nebraska ($25.8 million) led the way in dead money payments, followed by Texas ($21.5 million), Ole Miss ($20.4 million) and Kansas ($20 million).

---

quote:

---

….
Leath said he worked directly with Malzahn's agent, Jimmy Sexton, in part because the school was in between athletic directors at the time of his negotiated extension. Leath said the use of agents in coaching contract negotiations "is huge." Pretty much gone are the days of a coach coming in to discuss an employment contract in the same way a vice president of student affairs or a chief of police would.

"It's changed to this dynamic where the agent would prefer you don't even talk to your own employee," Leath said. "And sometimes you have to put your foot down and say, 'Listen, this person works for me. I don't have to go through you.' It's a very difficult, cumbersome process. It's easy for it to get somewhat adversarial. It changes the team spirit of working together for the common goal of advancing the program to much more of an unfun business negotiation."


Gus Malzahn took home $10.7M in dead money from Auburn through Jan. 31, 2021.

The Tigers had recently upset rivals Georgia and Alabama, who were both ranked No. 1 at the time, to reach the 2017 SEC title game. Arkansas had also expressed interest in hiring Malzahn.

With Malzahn's contract extension, Leath said the buyout provision was "unpalatable from our side, but necessary because of the playing field everybody was in at the time. So you take a risk that he'll perform well for two or three or four years and the buyout thing will go away. That's what you're hoping for."

Leath said he did push back on Malzahn's buyout provision and got it reduced from having to pay 100% of the remaining salary to paying 75% of what was left on the deal.

"We made it more favorable for the university," Leath said. "They were still tremendous terms for Gus, don't get me wrong. But they were certainly better for the university than when we started out."

Leath said he got there by adopting the attitude of, "Just, c'mon, let's be reasonable here," and having some individual meetings with Malzahn. "It would have been far better if no agents were involved and you could just sit down and say, 'What's best for the university? What's best for you? What's best for the program long-term?'"

In June 2019, Leath and Auburn mutually parted ways as well. His separation agreement called for him to receive $4.5 million over three years.

---